The Swan Song
by GoddamnWrite
Summary: A familiar face walks into Blaine Anderson's office with a new job. April Rhodes, a Hollywood B Movie starlet, is being stalked. Simple enough case. But the past isn't finished with Blaine yet. [Sequel to The Lost Nightingale.1940's noir-style AU.]
1. Chapter 1

There was a ghost in my doorway. She stood five foot five with brown curls spilling over her bare shoulders and a bright red gash for a mouth. Her legs ended in a pair of diamond earrings. They were real. So was she.

"Hello, Glamour." I said, my finger circling the rim of my scotch. "Nice to catch you between husbands." I motioned to the seat in front of my desk and gave the apparition a tight smile.

"You're starting early, Anderson," she said, draping her fur over the back of the chair and sitting down neatly.

"Breakfast."

"You missed that by a few hours."

"Brunch then. Now you didn't come here to tell me the time. I'm a big boy now." She snorted. "I can do that on my own." Placing my palms flat on the desk, I drank her in slowly. It had been a long time. "What are you doing in here, Santana?"

"Your secretary, Ms. Pillsbury, showed me in. Charming thing. Lovely teeth. Did you buy them?"

"I was thinking further back than five minutes ago."

"She seems a sweet kid," she said, ignoring me. "Too sweet for this bitter town." She lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke towards me. "Too sweet for _you_. When did you get so high class that you needed a dame running after you?"

I shrugged "She seems to like it. Who am I to stand in the way of someone's happiness?"

Dark eyes watched me solemnly. "You never seemed to mind when it was your own."

"Nor you." She nodded at that, looking down at her hand that was splayed across her thigh. Her ring finger hadn't even celebrated with a tan mark this time. Five years stretched out in the space between us, crawling by like dying snails. I saw a flash of cornflower blue, and I pushed it away.

"You ever hear from him?" Her voice was lower than the shadow of a snake. "The kid?"

My right hand moved unconsciously to the side. Above the drawer where his letters remained unopened. I felt the heat of want through the wood, neat and scorching my palm. "Santana," I warned.

"Kurt, wasn't it?"

"Don't." I hated her for a moment. How easy and clean she could say the name. Smooth as an infant's resume. When in _my_ throat it curled and twisted, refusing to budge. Choking me. "Let it be. He's better off in the past, Santana. It's safer there."

"I think you are forgetting the pasts we have. Nothing is safe there."

"I'm just glad you finally found a casting couch that you found comfortable." I tried to change the subject. "I went to see you in that science fiction piece last week. It was- different."

"It was terrible, Anderson. I had to strangle myself with a damn dead snake. The thing died before we had even finished the scene. This is what I get while Berry gets the blockbusters. Did you know she is filming with Bogart soon? Bogart! She can't even act!"

"Hey now," I rested my chin on my palms. "I like her movies. They're sweet."

"You would. You're their target audience. I bet you wept like a child while eating chocolate and cuddling into your jacket."

"Are you following me?"

"God knows why you like romance so much. It's hardly your field of expertise, is it?" She looked up a smile half frozen on her face. "I mean-"

"It's okay." I held up a hand, suddenly sobered. "Let's cut to the chase. Why are you here?"

"And you wonder why I don't make social calls." She leaned back in the chair. "I think I've got you another case."

"You don't say? Getting to be a regular gig with you. I'm practically swimming in the green."

"Sounds a nice way to bathe."

"It's a dirty way. And the stench doesn't come off easy."

"That's why they invented perfume." She flicked ash onto the floor. I didn't mind. It would have company down there. "It's my co-star. April Rhodes. She was in that B Movie with Lancaster awhile back? She's no Kate Hepburn, but she'll do, I suppose." She took a long drag and looked thoughtful. "Well, at the moment we are both on loan to Warners for a new film. Terrible pot boiler thing, of course. It's not going to set the cinemas alight but it's one under the belt. I play a ruthless, husband stealing bitch."

"Documentary, is it?"

"I forgot about that wit. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? Anyway, last week April comes to me in tears. She's been receiving letters. A real creep by the sound of them." She shrugged and picked at imaginary lint on her skirt. "It happens in this business; you get used to it. So she puts them away in a drawer and forgets about them." She eyed my hand narrowly as she talked. "Until she starts being followed."

"Followed?"

"Same man every night. He follows her from the set to the hotel. She goes out for a meal, she sees him steeling around bus boys. She goes out dancing, and it's his face in the crowd."

"You think they are connected?

"I think it's worth looking into. I think it's worth _you_ looking into."

"I'd need to speak to this Rhodes before I agree to anything. I got high standards now. Sometimes I even live up to them."

"She's here with me. I thought I'd best take you for a test drive before letting the girl in. Not everyone is used to your new brand of charm."

"If only they could bottle it."

She frowned. "What happened to you, Anderson? You were always such a nice boy. Too nice. A damn near saint. And now this." She gestured at the half empty bottle. "When it's barely midday. What the hell did that Hummel kid do to you?"

"Santana." There was a plea in my voice. Weak and broken. "Please."

She released a sigh and nodded. Stubbing her cigarette out on my desk, she rose and crossed the room, her heels sounding smartly against the ground as she opened the door. "April? Come on in."

A petite blonde entered the office. All eyes and curves with a jaunt like jelly riding coach on a diesel train. It must have taken her years to perfect it. Today she was beautiful, but ten years from now she'd be wishing it was ten years ago. A spark of recognition flared. Not the Lancaster movie. No, it was something else. I wasn't one for the pictures, but I made it my business to keep up to date with the Parsons and Hoppers of the world. You never knew when that guff would come in handy. That must be where I knew this dame from.

"Mr. Anderson," she breathed.

"Ms. Rhodes," I breathed back.

"Please call me April, sugar. Almost everybody does." Taking a seat she smiled and crossed her legs. She knew they were good. She leaned forward. She knew they were good, too. "You probably know me from the movies?"

"And me without my autograph book." She giggled and clasped a hand to her bosom and blinked as rapidly as an old woman's window blind. Santana smirked at me from her side. "I hear you're being followed? You've been getting notes?"

"Oh, vile things, Mr. Anderson! Such terrible, unrepeatable things!"

"Blaine," I offered. "These unrepeatable things? Care to repeat them?"

"Well, I-" She bit a knuckle and tears ran onto the stage and grabbed the mic. "They say the things they want to do to my-person."

"I can only imagine. Do you have any enemies? Lovers gone sour? You owe anyone dough?"

"No, no! Nothing like that!" she gasped in her little girl voice. "Santana says you can help? Can you, Mr. Anderson? I so desperately need help." Her lower lip wavered and she covered her face in her hands. Santana's eyes rolled. Mine joined them.

"Ms. Rhodes. April." I said. "You don't need to screen test for me."

"What? I don't-I don't know what you mean?"

"I mean if you were Montgomery Clift in that chair, then this little routine might be having some effect. You're not, and it isn't. So how about you just tell me the facts?" Santana's eyes widened at my rudeness and I pushed it away. That was the old Blaine. She had to see he was no longer in residence sometime.

April, meanwhile, looked like she had swallowed the moon. "Well ain't you the little spitfire! Some way to talk to someone who just wants a little help."

"The facts, April. That's all I'm interested in."

I saw a flash of steel in her blue eyes. "Sure thing, dreamboat. Whatever you say." She smoothed a palm down her leg. "It started about a month ago. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but then I began seeing this man everywhere I went. I'd see him when I left for the set. I'd see him when I got in of an evening. He was always there. _Is_ always there."

"What does this guy look like?"

"He's a Jew. He wears that-what do you call it? The orthodox stuff? The black and the hat with those little curls at the side of his head?" She made a wavy gesture with her finger at her temple. "And those small hats?" Hell, it was a wonder that the guy didn't hold up the Talmud whenever he saw her.

"I sincerely doubt you're being stalked by a Rabbi, Ms. Rhodes." I held up a hand, stopping her correcting the name or from being insulted. I didn't know. I didn't care. "When did the letters start?"

"A few weeks after I first saw him. They were sweet at first. Romantic. But then they began getting nasty. Accusing me of committing acts with my co-stars. Nasty, seedy little lies. He thought I had betrayed him." A sob burst from her, and her face dropped into her palms. "I just want him to go away, Blaine! I want to stop jumping at my own shadow!" I watched her cry. Santana watched me watch.

"I'll take the case," I said at last. Mainly for something to be saying. She looked up. Her face bone dry. "I'll see you on set tomorrow. Get my name on the door. I want to get a make on everyone you speak to on a daily basis. From the director to the caterer. Put my name on the list. Then we'll stick a tail on you. See who has the scent."

"Thank you, Blaine," she said, stiffly. She stood up, and Santana followed. She stuck a hand out to me, and I looked at it. It was a pretty hand. I looked it over fine. "Real nice guy!" With a cute nose in the air, she spun on her heel and walked out in her wavering, languid fashion.

"It's best to give her a head start," Santana said, turning toward me.

"Maybe we should have a game of cards. You can catch up to her in the lobby in about an hour."

"With you? You always chisel me."

"What can I say? You rubbed off."

She laughed and stared down at me. "It was good to see you, Anderson." She stuck out her hand like April. It was just as pretty, and I knew this time I couldn't avoid it. I clasped it quickly but she saw. I should have known that nothing escaped Santana. "Anderson! Your hand! How long has it shook like that?"

"It's just nerves. You're a big Hollywood star after all."

"Don't kid a kidder. It's the drink, isn't it?" Her eyes were round and accusing. Mine were small and south.

"I'll see you, tomorrow, Frail," I said in a final voice. She was very kind. She didn't press.

"Okay. If that's the way you want it. I'll see you then." She stopped at the door and tilted her head at me. "It was good to see you," she repeated, her voice soft.

I nodded and watched her leave. After awhile I opened my drawer and stared down at all that unopened white. I closed it again, hard. The bottle tottered from the table and leapt from the edge.

I never heard the shatter of glass.

* * *

I spent the drive home with my mind on the past and the car nearly on the damn sidewalk. I thought about the envelopes tucked into the inside pocket of my jacket. Unopened, unknown and comforting. It had been three or four months since I'd last read his words to me. Always written in his neat little print. His penmanship was so concentrated that with each letter he would leave a deep probing indent. After committing the words to memory, I'd glide my fingertips over the backs of the pages, like a blind man reading Holy Scripture. It had been three or four months since I'd last picked up my own pen and scrawled something back. Better that way. Cleaner.

Headlights snapped into play in my rear-view. April Rhodes wasn't the only one in town with an ardent admirer. A red coupé that had been following me on and off for the past week. It was loud and it was brassy, an amateur for sure. A professional wouldn't climb in my pocket and count the change like this. I sat back with a sigh ready for another game of Follow the Leader. Whoever this Joe was, he was all tease and no release, and I was getting a little weary of the action.

If this chump was going to follow me, I may as well make it worth his while. I drove down three or four blocks I had no business going down, and my shadow held on tight. I doubled back on myself twice. I ran a few red lights and took a few dark corners. I drove around like this for what felt like hours. So many circles my car got dizzy. As I neared my apartment, I gave the rear-view a longing glance. The mirror got clear and stayed clear. Looks like my date had skipped out early. And we hadn't even made it to second base.

I pulled up outside my place and waited. No little red coupé. No little stalkers. I got out and shut the door. I looked both ways, crossed the street and went into my building.

It was late. Time had got away from me like trash in the wind. Time had a way of doing that of late. I trudged up the steps, a shaking hand pressed against my chest. Pushing his unread words into my heart with every flutter. I heard a slight sigh above and froze. There was a shadow at the top of the stairs. Mr Red Coupé?

"Something I can help you with, Brother?" I called out, as my left hand encircled the butt of my Colt.48. It wasn't my best shot but if I employed the right I was more liable to plug myself in the back of the head. I took the rest of the stairs slowly, my eyes trained to mass of black. "You hear me?"

The shadow stepped forward. The shadow said my name. There were too many ghosts in my doorway.

He fell forward, and I caught him in my arms. He stared up at me with his eyes half lidded and what looked like a bright, drunken smile. I knew better. I pulled him up by the armpits and rested him against the wall, feeling all over his body for wounds.

"It'll be okay! It'll be okay!" said my voice from another room in another town. I tore my eyes away from the blue staring into me and looked at the colour staining my hands.

Red. The colour of blood. And Kurt Hummel was covered in it.


	2. Chapter 2

Fumbling for my keys, I grabbed him around the waist and dragged him inside. "Kurt, wake up. Wake up!" I gently lowered him onto the couch and not so gently slapped his face. "I'm going to call an ambulance-"

"No, no-" he murmured, pushing himself upward with a groan. " s'not mine..."

"Don't be a fool . You're hurt!"

"No. It's-" He grabbed his head as if to force the words out. "It's not my blood."

"What do you mean? Whose is it?" My hand clutched at the back of his head, nails twisting in his hair. For once it wasn't shaking.

"A man. He attacked me. I defended myself." He stared into my face and I got the message. Somewhere in LA was a body bleeding into a gutter. Very lonely. Very dead.

"Why did he attack you?" There were other questions. A million. But these had to come first. The heat of his thigh against my stomach felt like hot coffee against palms in winter.

"I was following him."

"Why were you-?"

"He was following _you_. He has been for this past week. I gave myself away. Wait!" He patted at his chest and then stared up at me with wide eyes, looked around and sank back into the pillows in disappointment. "My wallet. It's back there. With him."

"Wait. You've been back a week?"

"Two. I wrote to you. I told you! Why didn't you reply?" I still didn't reply. Just gripped his wrist tight. "Why did you stop writing to me, Blaine? It's been months. I didn't know if you were alive or dead!"

"No, not yet." I muttered.

"I wanted to see you. But-I didn't know if you wanted to see me. So, I don't know. I began to follow you. Pretty soon I noticed I had company."

"I think I know the company you mean. I've spotted it a few times. I lost it Downtown earlier tonight."

"A red coupe?"

"As red as Chaplin."

His other hand curled round mine, feather touches over the knuckles. "I began to follow him instead. He watched you all the time. Went wherever you did. And tonight-he must have made me. I lost him so I pulled over, just to get my bearings. Decide whether to give up for the night? The next thing I knew my door was being pulled open and I was eating sidewalk and being introduced to a toe cap." He touched the cut above his eyebrow gingerly. "He was a lot bigger than me, but I stood my ground. I fought back well enough but then he got out the knife-"

I nodded. I knew the rest. I'd read that book before. We fell into a silence and looked at each other. At what five years had done to us both. He was thinner in the face, and age had entered his eyes. The boy was leaving him. God knows what he saw on my screen.

"What did you do with the body?"

"I dragged it into an alley. Covered it in boxes." He clutched at his hair in frustration. "Blaine! The wallet, I must have lost it in the struggle."

"Here," I tore some paper from the notepad on my desk, pushing it and a pen towards him. "I need the street. Where you left It. Be exact."

"We can't go back!" He took them gently, and chewed on a plump pink lip. Too focused on my face to see that the tremor had returned. "We can't take the risk!"

"You're right. We can't. But I can. You've stuck a calling card on the stiff and it needs to go. Even dark alleys get light once in awhile." I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned my back. "We need to get you cleaned up and back on the train. Go back to your safe little life in safe little Ohio."

"I'm not going anywhere! Weren't you listening? You're being followed! What kind of trouble are you in?"

I didn't know. But I knew whatever it was I didn't want him involved. "Every fox and hound in this town is going to be looking for you, Kurt. You need to make dust and make it fast." I stared at the wall and heard him sigh. He sighed again and then came the sound of the pen scribbling out the directions. An ache began in my temple and I rubbed it absently, the gentle scratching of the nib on paper running through me like a live wire in the rain.

"At least let me come with you."

"No." I told the wall.

"But you need me!"

"I don't need you!" I rounded on him and the hurt in his face felt like a slap. "I don't."

"Blaine-"

"Look. We can go round like this all day but there's a body out on the streets getting colder and who knows what else you left behind. Probably a map and a compass. Come on." I placed his arm around my shoulders and hoisted him up. We made our way to the bathroom, his left leg giving a little kick out with each step, swinging the foot in a shallow arc. _It must have been hurt in the fight._ I thought, while trying not to like the way he hung on me like a too large suit. "We'll get you cleaned up and then I'll take you to the station ." He nodded in response and I lowered him onto the toilet seat.

"Let me just clear this up-" I turned from him and began to sweep the debris from the bath. "It's the maid's night off."

"You keep bottles of Scotch in the tub?" he asked, as I placed the bottles on the floor.

"It saves me getting out of the shower." I tested a hand against the spray. Warm. Inviting. Like the boy behind me. "Okay, do you need help to-" I turned and he smiled slowly, knowingly. And I realised that I'd worked myself into a corner.

He slipped the bloodied jacket from his shoulders to the floor. Slowly his slender hands came to the front and he began to pop the shirt buttons. His eyes never left mine. I swallowed. He wore no undershirt.

"Kurt-"

"Blaine?" He rose unsteadily to his feet and indicated his trousers. "A little help?"

Hands like cement I unzipped his pants and helped him out of them. My fingers brushed against the faint blonde hairs on his thigh. Faintly, I remembered what the sensation of them was like on my tongue. I pushed it away. As the shower's steam filled the room, I looked up. He looked down. We met in the middle. Our fingers touched as we pushed his boxers down.

"I'm too weak. I'm not going to be able to stand in there alone." His voice was as sickly sweet as ice cream in June. I wondered what kind of education he'd been receiving in Ohio to get a smirk like that. The jealousy tore around my insides.

"No. No. I guess not." I cursed myself for not being stronger.

Kurt's hands went to the lapels of my jacket and he had it shucked off my shoulders before I could protest. It hit the dingy tiles about the same time he hit the toilet seat again. As he sat, he hooked bloodstained fingers in my belt loops, drawing me close to him.

"What are you doing?" I winced internally. There was a sterling question for a detective to ask.

"Returning the favour ." He was smirking again and there was a small gleam like stolen silverware in his eyes.

I didn't bother to reply as his hands worked on my belt. Just sighed and tugged my shirt out from the waist of my slacks. I didn't bother with the all those damned buttons either, pulling shirt and undershirt off together and dropping them on top of my jacket.

Kurt added my belt to the pile then rested his warm, slightly damp hands on the hipbones exposed by my sagging trousers. I felt their weight and the weight of his gaze as I looked down. Whatever twinkle had been in his baby blues was gone now as his eyes moved over my torso, taking in five years of damage.

"This isn't a West Hollywood peep show." The tremor in my voice gave me away.

"Thank God!" His mouth moved in a sad parody of his earlier grin. His hands resumed their work. "If it was, I wouldn't be allowed to touch."

"What makes you think you're allowed to here?"

It was his turn to skip answers. Instead, he slipped his hands in the open front of my slacks to the waistband of my underwear, one each front and back. The slide of his fingers sent my loose trousers falling to the floor and a stab of desire down to my groin. With a soft growl I batted his hands away from me and swiftly pulled my briefs down myself. Feeling again his intense blue gaze, I removed socks, slacks, and underwear and tossed them onto the pile in one rumpled ball.

"Okay. Let's get this over with." I held a hand out to him and he took it without a word. We got him on his feet and, with his arm slung over my shoulder again, to the bathtub. I stepped into it first, the shower's weak spray missing me entirely. Kurt followed me, lifting a shaky leg over the rim. When he followed it with the other, he slipped on the wet floor of the tub and, unable to recover his footing, fell heavily against me.

I caught him, feeling the now healthy weight of him in my arms, and his almost unhealthy warmth pressed all against me. His breath wisped across my collarbone like a moist summer breeze off the ocean.

"Blaine?" He put layers of questions into my name. More than I could identify. There was no doubt, though, that one of them was about the stirring in my groin. There couldn't be any doubt with it pressing into his stomach.

"What do you expect, leading with your bum leg?" I growled, hauling him back to his feet before pushing him away a few inches. The harshness of my voice could as easily be from anger as another cause.

"Blaine." The soft, insistent pleading in his voice drew my escaping gaze back to him. "Thank you." He leaned toward me, lips seeking mine.

I turned my face to the side and pushed him under the shower's spray. "You smell like blood." If there were no other barriers between us, I'd make one of words. "Soap's on the sink."

Hi eyebrows rose in confusion at my harsh tone. "Blaine, I can't wash myself like this." I turned back to him, eyes narrowed. "I can't hold onto you and wash at the same time."

"Fine," I ground out, reaching over to the sink and snatching the soap as Kurt wrapped his arms around my neck. I rubbed the bar between my hands until I'd built up a good lather. I tossed it back, landing it in the sink rather than on. "Lean your head back." Our current position meant that I had to step closer to him and reach around his shoulders and up to wash his hair. "Close your eyes," I told him as I started working the soap into his hair and scalp.

"Why?" That irritatingly alluring twinkle was back in his eyes.

_That's why_. Our faces were far too close together. "Do you want soap in them?"

He bit his lip, words held back. With a nod he closed his lids. Free of his scrutiny, I scrubbed as best I could at his head, working at the bloodstains here and there. Even with his intense blue eyes closed, I found it hard to concentrate on my task. Every move pressed our arms together like an embrace. Every shift of his body rubbed it against my own. It was impossible to ignore. I felt the heat pooling in my groin, hotter than the sun on the Santa Monica pier.

Suddenly, he hissed in pain as the soap got into the cut on his brow. He shifted against me, pressing an answering heat against my own.

"Stop that," I tried to growl, but there was no strength in my voice. Just as there was no strength in my hand when I tried to pull his head back sharply under the shower. In the end, I had to step with him until his head was fully under the warm spray. I watched as the water ran down his face and neck in rivulets, their colours shifting gradually from red to pink to clear. As I ran my hands weakly through his hair to make sure it was all clean, Kurt opened his eyes. He tilted his head forward and smiled at me. It was different from his earlier ones; softer, warmer.

"Blaine," he whispered, drawing closer, lips parted. At the last moment, I turned my face away. With a sigh, he pressed his lips against my jaw. In front of my ear. Below my ear.

"Stop that." It was even weaker than before. Pathetic . I kept my gaze studiously on the tiles behind him. They were pale green. They might have looked as bright and warm as spring grass on the Hollywood Hills once. Now, with the grout black with mildew, they just looked dark and sickly.

_Fitting,_ I tried to ignore the feel of Kurt's lips brushing against my neck. The feel of his body in my arms after all these years.

Impossible with his hands making sensuous circles on my back and his growing heat and hardness rubbing insistently against my own as he started to rock against me.

It would be so easy. So much easier.

I don't do easy. Not anymore.

"Enough!" I snapped pulling his arms off and myself away. I stepped out of the tub and to the towel rack, back turned resolutely to him. I gripped the rusted metal of the rack and tried to will my arousal away.

"Blaine, _please."_ "What is it? What did I do wrong?"

_You came back,_ I thought as I made a show of ignoring him. Until I heard a thump and a small moan behind me. I turned back to find Kurt half fallen on the floor in front of the tub.

"Damn fool," I sighed and moved back to him. I held out my right hand. It shook.

He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at me. I looked back. We played another game of tag with our eyes, until he gave it up and grabbed my wrist. But instead of pulling _himself_ up, he pulled _me_ down. With what must have been just about the last of his strength, he tugged me to the floor, turned me around, and straddled my thighs.

There we were. Me on the damp tiles with my back pushed against the bathtub and Kurt in my lap, breathing hard. His hands gripped either side of my face and his elbows pressed into my ribcage.

Angry words died in my throat at the fiery intensity in his gaze. His eyes bored into mine for long moments. His thumbs moved to brush the newly born crow's feet at the corners of my eyes. His gaze shifted then, tracing, along with his fingers, every last crease.

Reading them like headlines on the front page.

"_It's been three months,_ Blaine. Why did you stop writing?"

Burned and battered, my walls gave way. "It was better that way."

"Better how?" I shook my head and tried to break our locked gaze. But he held me firm. "What is it? Please tell me." I shook my head again and he let loose a frustrated curse, his grip tightening as he pulled my mouth against his. He held our lips together as he turned his head, kissing me again and again as he rocked his hips against me. "Every day," he breathed against my lips before running his tongue lightly across them. "I've thought of you."

I lost the battle and answered him with a deep kiss of my own, nipping softly at his lips before tangling my tongue with his. One hand slid down his back to pull him even more tightly against me. The other went to tangle in his wet hair. He withdrew one of his own from my face to grip that hand. Slowly, inexorably, he drew them down to where our arousals pressed and throbbed against one another.

"Touch me," he said into our kiss.

I reached down, taking his erection in his hand, my mind had replayed the night at Pavarotti's every hour for the last five years and here we were again. But my fingers refused to bring more than a teasing pressure to bear. They shook rather than stroked. I cursed under my breath and closed my eyes. "Kurt, I'm sorry, I-"

"Shh-" Kurt breathed against my ear. He released my face completely and covered my shaking hand with his own steady one. He moved our joint hands over his arousal at the same time his other stroked mine. My cheek rested against his, the wet skin cool and comforting against my flesh. It had been so long.

I squeezed my eyes shut as pleasure shot through my body, and left me a loose wreck in his arms, my palm resting on the lovely ridge of his hip bone as I crushed him into me. As his heartbeat came down, I planted kisses alongside the slick feel of his neck.

He'd come back.

And I wished with all my heart that he had stayed the hell away.


End file.
